Conceptions of ethics by pharmacists of a municipal Primary Health Care system: between the said and the unsaid.

Abstract

It is a qualitative research that aimed to analyse the ethical conceptions of a group of pharmacists working in the context of Primary Health Care in a southern city in Brazil. We interviewed 19 pharmacists with the help of a semi-structured script. The interviews were transcribed and data analysed through the Thematic Content Analysis technique. It was observed that most participants showed some degree of difficulty to express their understanding of ethics, however the analysis showed different concepts and explanations, with predominance of a deontological conception. The deficiencies in professional education, especially in undergraduate, "where professional ethics" are still the hegemonic paradigm, wrere pointed out as an important critical node to be overcome. This limitations and distortions in the way of understanding ethics may contributes to failures in competence to identify, describe and explain the ethical problems present in daily life of health services and, consequently, also in the ability to deal with them.